Those Left Behind
by EwanMcGregorIsMyHomeboy12
Summary: Obi-Wan Kenobi is dead. Killed by a bounty hunter's bullet. Anakin Skywalker is still living, grappling with his own grief and the idea of the man who had the guile to kill his master. Rako Hardeen. But how does a man reconcile the loss of his brother? His father? His best friend? One Shot set during Deception Arc, Season 4.
**(A/N) Not sure what inspired. Hope you enjoy, let me know what you think! Please R and R!**

It doesn't start out unpleasant. In fact, this might be the most relaxed he's felt in years. "Qui-Gon and I used to come here." He can hear Obi-wan talking in front of him, turned away. Anakin watched his own hands as they feel along the trees, brushing through limbs that are coated with leaves in a hundred different shades of green, feeling the breeze that would only have brought him dust and sand on Tatooine. "I thought you might enjoy some time away from the temple."

He can hear what he learned was the trace of concern in Obi-Wan's voice. Here was a man so worried that he couldn't be a good master, that he would fail this small boy of everything before he had the chance to be anything. He wanted to tell him how wrong he was, he knew that now; but his lips would not say it. "I like the water." Instead, he felt himself say, heard it, in a voice that he hadn't heard from himself in a long time.

He felt himself anticipating Obi-Wan turning around, looking at him, but his old master stayed facing forward, looking over the river that had carved this space in the ravine. "I could use some lunch though." He heard Obi-Wan's laugh, a rare sound from these times together, before they were so close. He watched the ground and the trees and the water, surrounded by Obi-Wan's gentle force presence as he moved to rifle through the packs, looking for food. In it were fruits, muja fruits (Obi-Wan's favorite), berries of some odd sort, the inevitable protein pack. He watched his own hands pull them out, felt his own smile across his face.

"Come on, master, let's have an early lunch." But when his gaze went back to where the man was standing, Obi-Wan was different. He was shorter, stockier. As Anakin watched, his clothes started to darken, his Jedi robe whipping in a now violent wind that carried with it clouds that held a storm within their dark color.

"Where were you?" It was still Obi-Wan's voice. Only it was cold. Hard. It almost scraped physically against him. "Why couldn't you help me?"

"What do you mean?" Anakin felt himself begin to change. That long distant memory of a trip to a pastoral world changing to allow himself to morph into who he was now.

"If you are so strong, why couldn't you save me?" He could hear his master, he was in pain now, terrible, horrible pain. It twisted into his guts, his mind, his stomach started turning with guilt.

"No!" And then Obi-Wan turned to face him, but his eyes were cold, his features fixed in the cold state of death that Ahsoka had found him. "Obi-Wan!" But his screams were carried by the wind into nothingness. He tried to move, to run to the man, but his feet would not move. For every step they took, his mentor seemed farther and farther away, his voice was sucked away from him. He watched as his own mechanical arm extended, trying to reach him, but it was to no avail.

Instead, Obi-Wan, already changed in body, began to seemingly melt in thin air. Darkness swirled around him, his face the last thing to disappear into a thick cloud. Anakin choked, every memory of his master's pain, his master's suffering, the ones he had felt himself the cause of, came into his mind. Their fight with Dooku. Rattatak. Point Rain. Kadavo. And now, now…

Then Obi-Wan's cold, lifeless face was gone. In its place was a hideous face with a shaved head, thick tattoos running around the perimeters of his eyes, and on his face, a cold, cold smirk.

Anakin heard himself scream at Rako Hardeen, watched as the man did nothing but laugh at him as, reappearing at his feet, Obi-Wan's corpse came to be, the blaster bolt that had killed him burned into his chest. He heard that cold, horrible laugh, watched the bounty hunter raise that same rifle, aim it at Anakin who finally felt his arms be able to move. The shot came, but with the reflexes of a Jedi Knight, his lightsaber came up to block it.

Only it wasn't the blue plasma he was used to and knew so well. He heard, in his mind, Obi-Wan's voice. _Anakin. Why?_ But he had no explanation, looking down at himself, trying to find something that had changed, but nothing, not a scar, not a mark, not an injury of any kind held the secret of his blade, now glowing red as blood in his outstretched fist.

* * *

He bolted straight up in bed, feeling his body shaking, his face hot and wet with tears. To his relief, Padme was already awake next to him, he suspicioned some of his screaming had carried over from his dream. He felt her arm come around him gently, and he leaned into her, wanting her comfort, wanting something, anything but what he had witnessed. What he was living now.

"Tomorrow will help, Ani." She said softly, rubbing small circles in his skin as she let him cry into the shoulder of his nightshirt. He wanted to believe her. He wanted to believe her so badly. But he couldn't. Not now.

He pulled back from her, lying back down onto the pillows, the full memory of that day spent by the river with Obi-Wan coming back to him. They had talked frankly about the force that day, about Qui-Gon, about the pair of them. How difficult this all might be. About Obi-Wan's faith that he would become a great Jedi. He could remember it now clearly, but what had always seemed to be such a good memory, peaceful and relaxing, was now tinged with horror, and the sorry, miserable taste of death. He placed his hands over his face, and felt his wife lie on her side next to him, and he could practically feel the concern radiating from him.

"The service will help." She tried to assure him again, a soft hand on his chest. And he supposed, in an ordinary situation, that might be true. A funeral might help someone who hadn't lost one of the most important people in their life. Who hadn't lost their brother. Their father.

"I have to find him." He said in reply, the tears stopping instantly, and he lowered his hand to his chest. A familiar response was building in his chest. When his mother had been killed, he had held this same sort of rage inside of him. He had destroyed an entire Tusken Raider village shortly after that. Slaughtered them in his own pain. This pain was just as raw, his nerves starting to twitch, any desire to sleep leaving his body.

"Ani, he's gone."

"Not Obi-Wan…." The name hurt so much to say. It tasted like salt and burned like acid. "Not Obi-Wan." She paused her gentle circles over his skin, looking at him concernedly. "Rako Hardeen." She said nothing. No argument. Only laid back down beside him.

They lay in silence for so long that he thought she had gone to sleep, his stare still fixed on the ceiling, but when he did glance over at her, he saw her looking down at where their fingers were entwined together. "It won't bring him back."

She said it so softly he might have missed it. So quietly, he might not have been intended to hear it. But those five words, so simple, so true, cut deeper than she knew.

And inside him, he felt the tightening know of hatred grow just a tiny bit tighter.


End file.
